The second of six originally aired concerts featuring Leonard Bernstein with some of the world's top orchestras. Models from the rules of grammar are used by conductor Leonard Bernstein to explain the structure of music. Comparing melodies to nouns, chords to adjectives and rhythm to verbs, he demonstrates, with the aid of excerpts from Wagner, how a simple melody can be transformed into a complex musical statement.
[An animated film based on Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," as performed by Bernstein and the Boston Symphony, follows the lecture.]